* * * * *

JUDGE YOU AS YOU ARE?

                            How would you be
    If He which is the top of Judgment should
    But judge you as you are?  Oh, think on that,
    And Mercy then will breathe within your lips
    Like man new made.

Measure for Measure, Act 2, Sc. 2.

* * * * *

ROBERT OF LINCOLN.

    Merrily singing on briar and weed,
      Near to the nest of his little dame,
    Over the mountain-side or mead,
      Robert of Lincoln is telling his name. 
          Bob-o’-link, Bob-o’-link,
          Spink, spank, spink;
    Snug and safe in that nest of ours,
    Hidden among the summer flowers;
          Chee, chee, chee.

    Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest,
      Wearing a bright-black wedding coat;
    White are his shoulders, and white his crest,
      Hear him call his merry note: 
          Bob-o’-link, Bob-o’-link,
          Spink, spank, spink;
    Look what a nice new coat is mine,
    Sure there was never a bird so fine;
          Chee, chee, chee.

    Six white eggs on a bed of hay,
      Freckled with purple, a pretty sight! 
    There as the mother sits all day,
      Robert is singing with all his might. 
    Nice good wife, that never goes out,
    Keeping house while I frolic about.

    Summer wanes,—­the children are grown;
      Fun and frolic no more he knows,
    Robert of Lincoln’s a humdrum crone: 
      Off he flies, and we sing as he goes,—­
    “When you can pipe in that merry old strain,
    Robert of Lincoln come back again.”

W. C. BRYANT.

* * * * *

MY DOVES.

    My little doves have left a nest
      Upon an Indian tree,
    Whose leaves fantastic take their rest
      Or motion from the sea;
    For, ever there, the sea-winds go
    With sunlit paces to and fro.

    The tropic flowers looked up to it,
      The tropic stars looked down,
    And there my little doves did sit,
      With feathers softly brown,
    And glittering eyes that showed their right
      To general Nature’s deep delight.

    My little doves were ta’en away
      From that glad nest of theirs,
    Across an ocean rolling gray,
      And tempest clouded airs. 
    My little doves,—­who lately knew
    The sky and wave by warmth and blue!

    And now, within the city prison,
      In mist and dullness pent,
    With sudden upward look they listen
      For sounds of past content—­
    For lapse of water, swell of breeze,
    Or nut-fruit falling from the trees.

    Soft falls their chant as on the nest
      Beneath the sunny zone;
    For love that stirred it in their breast
      Has not aweary grown,
    And ’neath the city’s shade can keep
    The well of music clear and deep.